Tag Archives: virtual worlds 1.0

How do virtual worlds build community?

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More virtual worlds and virtual world projects are shutting down. Some may remember Google Lively died a year ago. More recently it’s been vSide, Metaplace, and now Project Wonderland. It really does seem to be the end of Virtual Worlds 1.0. I and a few others have even begun to ponder what will be part of Virtual Worlds 2.0 – rise from the ashes of 1.0? But it’s also a good time to review lessons learned.

Community is a chicken and egg thing

As the old saying goes, there is no shortcut to success. The strategy for most Virtual Worlds 1.0 revolved around a thriving community to interact with and supply content (User Generated Content – UGC). All you needed was an instant community, and apparently you get those by developing some cool technology like 3D scenes, avatars, etc. However at the same time user studies were showing that all that technology still wasn’t enough for typical users. It was essential that they capture a community – it was a chicken and egg problem.

How do you solve the chicken and egg problem, well virtual worlds tried to tackle this in various ways:

Google Lively
Google Lively launched hoping the Google name would bring so many users that enough would stick. But not that many stuck as this Google Trends graph shows.

It also didn’t help that the odd collection of avatars left users utterly confused as to the context of the world.

IMVU
One of the first movers in the 3D chat space, IMVU relied heavily on AdWords to drive early traffic. Being a first mover, IMVU also wasn’t paying much for those AdWords. Eventually they were able to tweak their product enough to find market fit and amass  a community. A community heavily based on flirting but a community none the less.

Metaplace
Founded by game design legend Raph Koster, Metaplace’s approach was to appeal to game designers. They built some powerful scripting tools, however that presented its own problem as Simon Newstead’s , CEO & Co-Founder of Frenzoo, pointed out:

3/ Built for the builders, but not for the mainstream users

This one is a bit clearer, there was a great amount of feature support and tools added for world builders, but less tools or attractions for your average every day user.  It seemed like a classic chicken and egg situation – not enough users for attracting game devs, and not enough games/content to attract users?  The existing games on the site were ok but not up to the same level as many great flash games now, and the social elements and avatar stickiness perhaps wasn’t up to many average users expect.  Perhaps MP should have jumpstarted some high quality gaming with internal development and showcase, and in parallel giving users something to get hooked on…

Of course IMVU’s strategy was the most successful, but it’s a little difficult to duplicate as the first mover advantage is gone.

Build community the old-fashioned way – around a product

Just as Google came out of Web 1.0, some virtual worlds will rise from the ashes and drive into Virtual Worlds 2.o. I think Frenzoo is one such world.

It started out as a fashion site, heavily sided toward user generated content. They made it easy to design your own 3D clothing and model it on an avatar. But that was about it when it started in 2008 – no virtual world or personal scenes. However I could create my own fashionable outfit. From day one it filled a need – how many girls dream of becoming fashion designers. It didn’t need the instant community to be useful, yet the more community it had the better an experience for the user.

Having already built a community Frenzoo then transferred them into a virtual world, complete with 3D scenes. It wasn’t a cake walk, but they applied age-old techniques of product and community management to make it a success.

That woke us all up! So the first couple days after the launch we we dropped everything to concentrate on fine-tuning the camera, angle and lighting settings and get our avatars looking better again.

They know their audience, they’ve cultivated their community long before transferring them into a virtual world. It’s the same strategy Japanese CyberAgent took launching the incredibly successful Ameba Pigg.

It can’t be just about the technology

Compare Frenzoo to Google Lively, IMVU, and Metaplace. The product they launched day one was mostly cool technology and they expected the community to magically form around it. When I first jumped into Google Lively I could customize my avatar and set up my own scene. I guess the “product” was self expression through 3D maybe? Everything else involved interacting with other people – the community. It’s the chicken and egg problem again. Trying to form an instant community around technology turns out to be pretty difficult and leaves you with some interesting issues as Simon Newstead points out in analyzing Metaplace.

4/ Who was the audience?

This is an interesting one.  When I spent some time on the site I was struck how there seemed to be two distinct groups of users.  Those older, technically proficient game dev types who loved being able to tinker and create world.  And then a very young tween/young teen female set with “HoT ChiCs” clubs and looking for 14yo boyfriends.  It almost seemed to confirm the 2d avatars suited the young female crowd and the game APIs suited the game devs.

The end of Virtual Worlds 1.0, now onto 2.0

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Another Virtual World 1.0 is shutting down. This time Raph Koster’s Metaplace.com. This after vSide shut down earlier in the year and Google Lively last year. Playing off of Web2.0 I would group these and current worlds under virtual worlds 1.0. They’re similar to Infoseek, Excite, AOL, and Yahoo! – Web 1.0.

A few things defined Virtual Worlds 1.0:

  1. All about the technology – Classic problem of building a solution in search of a problem.
  2. Myth of self-expression – In search of a problem, many virtual worlds settled on self-expression as the problem they were trying to solve. Too bad no one was seriously hurting for tools to express themselves.
  3. Installs – Metaplace just used Flash but most had their own proprietary installs. No one like installs, especially the core audience most of these services were going after.
  4. Just 3D chat rooms – When self-expression fell flat and they found it difficult to compete with true casual games sites, these worlds were left with little more than 3D chat.

There are however Virtual Worlds 1.0 success stories. IMVU is incredibly succesful embracing it’s core functionality as just a 3D chat. Ameba has been a big hit in Japan by transitioning a community pre-built around blogs into a virtual world. And then there is always Second Life, probably the winner by default.

Virtual Worlds 2.0

As Web 2.0 rose out of the ashes of Web 1.0, virtual worlds will do the same.

Two things I believe will define Virtual Worlds 2.0:

  1. Built around 3D in the browser – Say hello to O3D and WebGL.
  2. 3D is for entertainment – Unlike what many believe, 3D isn’t exactly good for communication. What 3D is good for is entertainment.

60 Days of WoW

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Seeing one virtual world after another fail is kind of depressing and really, how much can you learn from failure? It’s not all failure, some virtual worlds like World of Warcraft are thriving. What did WoW do to separate it from the rest of the lot? A strong context is certainly one aspect of its success, but how exactly did they build that context and reinforce it through the integration of story?

Virtual Worlds 1.0 = 3D chat

I like some people jumped into virtual worlds with both feet. I thought finally the time was right, but in the end I would argue that the majority of virtual worlds 1.0 were little more than 3D chat. You could personalize your avatar and virtual room in Google Lively but neither feature moved it beyond 3D chat and Google closed its experiment after less than a year. If you stumble upon a newbie in many of these virtual worlds and you’ll most likely hear – what’s the story or how do I start the game? As a product manager I dreaded hearing such questions. It meant that at a very basic level users didn’t get it, other than it being nifty they didn’t see any point. They have expectations though, they just weren’t being met.

Successful Virtual Worlds incorporate story

Not all virtual worlds failed to answer the newbie questions however and became some wildly successful – Club Penguin, WoW, Pirates of the Caribbean. These virtual worlds had either strong context (story) or goal architecture, or both. Many people have studied the goal architectures but I haven’t seen as many focus on the integration of the story. And integrating it is no easy feat, Disney Imagineers have practically made it a study in itself. So much so that competitors copy them; Six Flags has been trying to add story to avoid bankruptcy.

Six Flags also acquired Dick Clark Productions, which produces the Golden Globes and American Music Awards, and Mr. Shapiro positioned the company as a mini-Walt Disney that offered families a similar experience, but at lower cost.

How does WoW integrate story?

So how exactly does WoW integrate story? I’m going to dive in and spend 60 days in WoW to try and learn just that. I’ve always had friends who were obsessed with WoW and told me to join, but I’m simply not a gamer. I was also biased, I thought the future of virtual worlds lay in the personalization features Google Lively and others were incorporating. Comparably, MMOs seemed old school. Boy have I learned that to be wrong. So I enter WoW not only as a novice but as someone outside their core gamer audience. Let’s see if it can pull me in. But more than that my goal is to see how they incorporate story.

The defining feature of virtual worlds 1.0 will be the lack of context

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Google Lively closedIt seems we’re entering the later stages of virtual worlds 1.0. Google Lively was shut down 3 months ago. John Zdanowski, long time CFO of Second Life recetnly stepped down; that’s after founder Philip Rosedale and CTO Cory Ondrejka left late last year. That isn’t to say Second Life is dieing, rather I believe it’ll be one of the few survivors of 1.0. Many of the start-ups begun in it’s limelight however will not fare as well. These companies won’t fade because Second Life or any other was victorious but because none of them captured the mainstream user. And to blame might be one of the defining features of virtual worlds 1.0 – a lack of context.

1.0 starts with a theory

Virtual worlds 1.0 was been driven by technology, most notably a graphics. Pre 1.0 virtual worlds didn’t have the graphical quality needed to attract larger audiences but with the birth of There and Second Life it seemed almost anything was possible. The theory was that if you could give users a truly rich 3D graphical environment they would come in mass. These new graphically rich worlds like Second Life managed to capture the attention of the press, then the general public, but the users never really materialized. There was more famous for flaming out than ushering in the future.

Make it easier, give them more, and self expression

Even before Second Life’s hype started to fade, upstarts began nipping at its heals. They promised ease of use, easy installation and access through web browsers, tie-ins with other web services such as Facebook, and an opportunity for self expression. In addition games were pumped into virtual worlds – anything and everything to keep the few users entertained. The virtual worlds seemed on the cusp of mainstream success, they certainly knew what users wanted. Sally Schmidt of Circle 1 Network laid it out at the recent Engage! Expo.

She then broke down the five key strategic points into the 5 Cs: Creativity (dressing up avatars, decorating homes, designing clothes), Collection (free goods, paid goods, points), Caring (feeding a virtual pet, charity), Community (chat, events, message boards), and last but not least Competition (levels, comparing points wit other players). Her conclusion was that each of the big sites encompass all five key points, but only strongly emphasize a few. For instance, on Stardoll the draw is obviously in the creativity of designing your own clothes and styling your avatar. On Neopets, your role as pet owner promotes caring.

In the end it’s still little more than 3D chat

Yet despite their attempts the mainstream users still didn’t come. However those in the industry try to paint it, Google Lively’s quick departure was a sign – the new, easier to use virtual worlds weren’t catching on either.

Yahoo! AvatarsEase of use and installation certainly broadened the market but the addition of games probably did little. How could these primitive games compete with other games already online? Tie-ins with social networks also added little and self expression seemed almost unwanted. Of course the latter point was already well known. When I worked at Yahoo! one of the mythical projects was to give users customizable avatars. Granted the first examples were 2D, but what shocked us was how little users seemed to care. Some liked customizing their outfits and such, but soon became bored. There was a market, but it was much smaller than any of us had predicted.

Virtual worlds 1.0 still didn’t offer a value proposition. They were nifty but didn’t offer any must have features. If I wanted a social network I’d just use Facebook as my friends were already there and 3D avatars offered little. In the end virtual worlds 1.0 is basically nothing more than 3D chat. And we all know what chat is famous for – sex. It was something Google Lively constantly had to deal with and defined other platforms.

The other popular service that was anything akin to what Lively had to offer was the immensely popular (and profitable) IMVU, which thrives off their always flirtatious, frequently risqué, and occasionally obscene userbase.

- That Was Quick: Google Shuts Lively Down

What did work

Virtual worlds 1.0 hasn’t been all failure – kids worlds proved popular. Was this because kids naturally just got it? Do we now have to wait for these kids to grow up; not unlike how manga grew up with their audience to where adults read comics on the way to work?

One thing that separates most kids worlds from adult or tween worlds are their strong sense of context. They don’t commonly pitch themselves as a virtual world, but as exciting play areas. Club Penguin isn’t about games, it’s about penguins first and foremost.

Club Penguin TownWhen you think about it, context is one thing the majority of 1.0 virtual worlds never had. They pitched themselves as a tie-ins to Facebook or AIM, places of virtual economies, where you can dress up an avatar. It simply didn’t click with users. I know cause whenever I ask friends what virtual worlds are they go blank or mention seeing Second Life on The Office. Ask a parent about Club Penguin and you’ll get a much different answer.

“Context determines meaning” and virtual worlds 1.0 as a whole had little or no context. What is a virtual economy? What is a tie-in with Facebook? What is even a virtual room? It’s like a movie with out a theme or genre – it’s nearly impossible to remember or find a categorical home for it in your head. Some would argue that Facebook itself is difficult to explain, but at first Facebook was simply a way to connect and stay in touch with friends. The mini-feed and everything else are more difficult to grasp at first, but Facebook itself has something the mainstream can get behind – connect with friends.

Virtual worlds 2.0

Of course out of the ashes of 1.0, virtual worlds 2.0 will rise. Granted it’s been a technology driven push to 1.0, but I’m certain that context will be a big part of 2.0. Some may argue that 2.0 is mobile, ubiquitous in-world connection, etc. but I strongly disagree. Much of this can be built faster in 2D and I might add, done better. As we’ve learned with virtual worlds 1.0; the value isn’t in the customizable avatar, self expression, or rudimentary games – it’s the context. When I want to enter a world I’ll visit a virtual world. If I want to play a game with friends I’ll visit a casual game site. Sure it would be nice to have the same avatar across services, but it isn’t necessary.

Of course having context is another way to pigeonhole yourself. Club Penguin simply doesn’t appeal to tweens. Start-ups in Silicon Valley are built to dominate markets, not simply become a hit in a hits driven business. The expertise of Southern California are better suited to such a business, however I have faith in Silicon Valley to evolve and tackle this new challenge. At least Silicon Valley can build the technology to power artists to create the context. And if Silicon Valley ultimately fails, well there’s always a market for enterprise and serious games.